by Henry Oliner Many Americans have become familiar with basic economic concepts because it affects them so regularly, but our understanding usually stops at our shore. The Brexit vote has us scratching our head to comprehend something we hardly knew
Read More
from Kevin Williams at National Review,Why does this gas station pay so well? When I mentioned my surprise at what it pays to work at a gas station in Bastrop, I got two reactions, both predictable. One was from a
Read More
A business makes a capital investment for two reasons: one is to expand production to meet rising consumer demand, and another is to increase efficiency or reduce cost. The first reason is common during a growing economy and such investment
Read More
Uber reduces DUIs, traffic fatalities, and accidents. The drivers are safer because it is cashless and the entire trip is tracked online. And they carry more insurance than the cabs. They are more available and better serve their customers. By
Read More
The left is unable or unwilling to articulate any limitation of the welfare state and unable or unwilling to acknowledge the social costs of long term dependency. Moves to push the recipients to work must recognize and correct the policy
Read More
By Henry Oliner For the third consecutive year I attended the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha. It has become a tradition for a group of us attending to meet the first night at Drovers Steakhouse where they marinate the
Read More
The internet gave rise to Google and Facebook. The iPhone gave rise to Uber. The ideologies are important only to the extent that they facilitated ideas. Our current development is less dependent on assets and physical capital than ideas. We
Read More
from Martin Conrad at Barron’s; Finding the Path to Enrichment Smith argued that man was an economic animal who, by his bargaining and exchanging in the marketplace, could benefit from the diverse talents and genius of all his fellow men.
Read More
an excellent post from Scott Grannis at Calafia Beach Pundit, The Bad news is why I am optimistic Grannis is one of my favorite economics bloggers- and one of the few that seems to combine a sense of harsh reality
Read More
I watched with incredulity as businessmen ran to the government in every crisis, whining for handouts or protection from the very competition that has made this system so productive. I saw Texas ranchers, hit by drought, demanding government-guaranteed loans; giant
Read More
from Mark Perry at Carpe Diem, New BLS data show that for all ‘chief executives,’ the ‘average CEO-to-average worker pay ratio’ is less than 5-to-1 For the sample of 20,620 CEOs reported by the BLS, their average pay increased only
Read More
From Barron’s and Thomas Donlan, Trading Promises About the Trans-Pacific Partnership-Politicians are the threat to rising incomes and global prosperity. The AFL-CIO and much of the Democratic Party at large (though thankfully not the White House) are working their way
Read More
Firms Shy Away from Spending– Eric Morath in the WSJ Companies appear reluctant to step up spending on the basic building blocks of the economy, such as machines, computers and new buildings. The broadest measure of U.S. business investment advanced
Read More
from Mona Charen at National Review, How Bernie Sanders Became the Conscience of the Democratic Party The idea that “the rich” sit permanently atop a pyramid of worker drones is false. Consider the companies that were once ubiquitous but are now
Read More
from The Wall Street Journal Encouraged by the Feds, Cities Are Punishing Business by John Ella The challenge for employers is not only the cost of higher wages or paid sick time. Multistate employers compelled to monitor new developments in
Read More
from the Wall Street Journal, The Corporate Tax Political Divide ‘Why is the tax code making it better for foreign companies to invest in the United States than U.S. companies?” That was the pungent question posed by Pfizer Chairman and CEO Ian Read in an
Read More
from the Wall Street Journal, The Golden Goose is on the Run by Bob Funk: There is a disconnect today between what government experts say about the economy when they crunch the numbers and what employers throughout America say when
Read More
From Barron’s, Chinese Puzzle by Thomas Donlan: Worldly wise investors and sophisticated geopoliticians sometimes forget that Chinese markets reflect the power of the country’s government more than its economy. The price of stocks in state-owned and state-funded corporations has too
Read More
From Scott Grannis at Calafia Beach Pundit, The Problem is The Lack of Productivity That it has not grown faster despite extremely low interest rates and very accommodative Fed policy is not evidence of the failure of monetary policy or
Read More
Recent Comments